During Mark Paraskeva’s time at IRIS, he’s helped oversee the development of the IRIS Holiday Pay Module. An additional add-on software module for businesses who want to get a head-start on the potential changes to holiday pay, due to recent court cases in Lock vs. British Gas and Fulton vs. Bear Scotland, respectively.

I sat down for a chat with Mark to get his thoughts on both auto enrolment and now holiday pay, and discussed why it’s so important for small businesses to aware of the court cases and potential changes to holiday pay legislation, and how IRIS can help businesses get ahead of the changes.

You can read part one of my chat with Mark, discussing auto enrolment, here.

Q1. What is the reaction from IRIS to the recent Holiday Pay tribunal rulings from Lock vs. British Gas?

A: “This is something that we’ve followed for a while, and we weren’t totally surprised at this particular ruling which really wanted to compensate employees fairly, either for overtime or for commission.”

Q2. Why have IRIS developed the Holiday Pay Module?

A: “Based from the two tribunals (Lock vs. British Gas and Fulton vs. Bear Scotland, respectively) we now know that this is a real issue and we now know that every employer does need to be aware of this, as it’s something that they may need to face. As with auto enrolment, most of the information for this is usually included in payroll, so we’ve added some extra screens, fields and features to help bring automation to our customers.

“There are a lot of parallels with auto enrolment, so we’ve developed it in response to our customers asking for it, and for those whom it doesn’t affect just yet, it means that when it does, we have a software option available to solve this particular legislative problem for them right from the start.”

Q3. What role do you see software and technology playing with Holiday Pay overall?

A: “Like with most of the requirements in payroll and auto enrolment, you can either do it manually, which as we know is painful and takes a long time and you’re very likely to get it wrong; or you can automate it which is the obvious answer. Once you’ve automated it, you know that you’re going to get it right every pay period and can sleep easy at night. I think we have a very simple view on this in that payroll solves a payroll problem, the IRIS AE Suite™ solves the auto enrolment problem, and the IRIS Holiday Pay Module will solve the holiday pay and legislation problem.

“When the Government asks you to meet a particular piece of legislation, if there’s a software module which can allow you to do it, reliably and repeatedly and you know that it is working every time in the background then it’s a great benefit. So from our point of view, we see software and technology as being absolutely the answer to this particular piece of legislation.”

Q4. Where do you see Holiday Pay legislation being in 12 months’ time?

A: “I think it’s going to be either law or much closer to being law, nobody can know but I think the precedent is now set for people to take into account the 12-week rule, and we don’t see that changing or being overruled. So we think it’s either going to be legislation or certainly a lot closer to legislation and that means that more and more companies will have to bear this in mind.”

Q5. What advice would you give businesses regarding Holiday Pay?

A: “Two things, number one is definitely get trained and understand what the legislation means. Holiday Pay is probably a lot harder than auto enrolment because with auto enrolment the legislation is quite specific and the regulators have actually defined what needs to happen very clearly. With holiday pay, it’s a bit different because the legislation is incredibly simple, you just need to pay people an average of the previous 12 weeks; but in reality that then is incredibly complicated as there’s no simple definition of the last 12 weeks.

“The first thing should be to understand it, and that’s something we can help with. The second thing is, if you are worried or interested in getting a head-start, then you should look at the IRIS Holiday Pay Module because we’ve built this to specifically address this piece of legislation. We have customers out there using the software today, and from what we’ve seen we believe we’re the first, or certainly one of the first, venders to offer something like this, so for customers who would like to start doing this today, we’ve got a module they can pick up and start implementing what the legislation may be in the future, today.”

To find out more about holiday pay, and how your business should prepare, visit our Holiday Pay Insight Page for free tips and content, including our brand new holiday pay infographic. The infographic is a quick and easy way of learning the key facts and figures behind holiday pay, in a handy document you can save and share.

The IRIS Holiday Pay Module

If you’re interested in getting a head-start with holiday pay, take a look at the IRIS Holiday Pay Module for your business.

The product integrates with your exisiting IRIS payroll software and automatically calculates the amount of holiday pay owed to each of your employees based from their previous 12-weeks’ total earnings. This saves you the time and hassle of having to work out the average owed, and also removes the possibility of incorrect calculations which could lead to back-payments needing to be paid in the future.

As technology evolves more and more businesses are now making use of the latest development in telephone systems. A hosted telephony system from IRIS offers the same levels of service as a traditional system but with much lower cost, and greatly enhanced features.

We use cookies to offer you a better experience, analyze site traffic, and serve targeted advertisements. By continuing to use this website, you consent to the use of cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy.